Johnson & Johnson will not participate in this year's upfront market, The Wall Street Journal reports. Instead, the health care and pharmaceutical products giant will make its buys later in the summer, which is more in-line with its business-planning process. "What we found is, if we can synchronize our business-planning cycle [with buying media time] it will benefit the brand and that is what this is all about," says Kim Kadlec, Johnson & Johnson's chief media officer. The company, which spent about $500 million on network-TV ads last year, may not be the only one to forgo the upfront, the …

Media buyers are gearing up to include new digital platforms in their 2006-07 upfront advertising negotiations with the major television networks. "How is this upfront different from all other upfronts?" Charlie Rutman, CEO for North America at Havas' MPG unit in New York, asks the New York Times, answering, "This upfront will be different because of all the choices." The 2006-7 upfront starts today, reports The Times, "with the presentation of the NBC prime-time lineup, and continues through Thursday. After the unveiling of the schedules, bargaining begins over how much the advertisers will pay as well as which shows they …

While Yahoo CEO Terry Semel says it's possible to imagine Microsoft buying a piece of Yahoo, which some have said would be a good move for both companies, the relationship between the two corporate behemoths probably didn't grow any warmer this week when Semel announced he was thoroughly unimpressed by MIcrosoft's latest and much-ballyhooed search platform. "You have no chance," he said of his competitor. "You begin with no data and not a single advertiser in your system." He also said during an industry event that Yahoo, Google, and other like companies have a huge advantage over television when it …

The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint, who covers the television beat, had a nice "Small Screen" column yesterday headlined, "Are Fridays Back from the Dead?" For the most part, he answered, yes, they are. Broadcast networks, particularly CBS, have discovered audiences can be found on a night that, until recently, had been given up as a non-starter. Although Fridays had once been big in the world of prime time, not lately. That's changing. "Ratings leader CBS... has decided that it is sufficiently strong enough on other nights of the week to be able to pay attention to Fridays," writes Flint. …

Going where few TV or cable networks have sought to go before, NBC Universal's Bravo unit says it will devote its Tuesday and Wednesday nights to a lineup of unscripted programs; Wednesdays will be given over entirely to a "creative competition" format to help set the cabler apart. According to Mediaweek: "This summer Bravo will introduce threenew unscripted series to its Tuesday night lineup, including ‘Million Dollar Listing,’ a look at a high-end California real estate agency (June 12), ‘Workout,’ which chronicles the various intrigues that take place inside celebrity trainer Jackie Warner’s Hollywood gym (July 19), and the …

You'd have to reside in the rarified world occupied by magazine circulation experts to fully appreciate, or perhaps even understand, Baird Davis' detailed, company-by-company takeout on magazine circulation levels, but this is an excellent effort at explaining the steady circ fall-off across the industry. Baird's main point is that most major publishers have been engaged in a game of "circ chicken," meaning they have done everything legally possible to hide or disguise the unfavorable circulation trends. But the jig is up, he says. His conclusion is harsh but clear: "For the consumer magazine business, 2006 is sure to be a …

 The International Federation of the Periodical Press reports on a new study that reveals the extent to which North American business magazines need to focus on their collateral Web sites.  The survey, published by Ipsos Media, found that "a massive 68 per cent of executives questioned believed a strong Internet presence was vital for a business magazine’s success. One fifth said they used the Internet as their first port of call for getting information on financial markets, personal finance, and technology, and 65 percent said they spend more time reading business information online than in the past." At the …

Mark Jurkowitz, the highly regarded media critic of the Boston-based weekly The Phoenix, does an excellent job of sizing up a messy newspaper situation, explaining how The Boston Herald, despite a mounting array of challenges, intends to keep publishing. The latest obstacle to The Herald's survival: A previously small-time outfit, Liberty Publishing, just paid more than $225 million to purchase a group of local papers that entirely encircle The Herald's Boston market. "The big prize was snatched by a largely unknown eight-year-old Illinois company--one that has never operated in Massachusetts --with an undistinguished track record and a history of …

Paul Hayes, managing director of London's Times Newspapers, told an audience at the Internet World gathering there this week that while bloggers currently possess a certain haute aura, the balance of power will inevitably shift back to newspapers because they are in the business of conveying impartial information, not just opinion. The best bloggers--the true stars--will be linked to established newspapers because that natural alliance makes sense for both of them. "Millions of blogs have sprung up over the last year, but a cursory search shows that the majority of their information sources lead back to mainstream media," Hayes said …

The New York Observer's Tom Scocca, using the occasion of Time's flashy "Time 100" issue to call the venerable magazine to task, begins by saying, "This is, by consensus, the time to be violently shaking up magazines. The Web has arrived; the readers are leaving; the industry’s grip on the pinnacle of the words-and-pictures trade is getting sweatier and slipperier."   Having established that as background, Scocca goes on to say that Time, although lovingly nurtured by Time Inc., is totally missing the boat.  While The Atlantic and The New Yorker, among others, regularly deliver intelligent investigative reporting and commentary, …